Summer in the City

by Irene Vartanoff

  Nancy, being pregnant, conked out first. They left her on the living room couch, and went into Rona’s bedroom to share her king-size bed, which now was cleared of the piles of clothing. Rona still was restless.

  “I can’t believe it.”

  Susan kicked her. “Believe it. Let’s get some sleep. We’re going to look like hags tomorrow.”

  “Nah, a ton of cover-up under the eyes and we’ll be fine.” She waved Susan’s concern away. “This is an historic night. My last night as a single woman.”

  They talked about Bev and Todd. Rick and Michael. Nancy and the baby. Rona’s mother, who was thrilled but too fragile to travel to see her daughter married at last. Most of all, they talked about Edward. Rona was ecstatic.

  “Edward loves me. Do you know that when he proposed to me in the hall, another tenant came out? He saw her. She saw him and recognized him. I could tell. He never even blinked. He didn’t care if he could be causing gossip. All those years of caring too much, of toeing the line. Now he has turned a corner.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “He knows I’d never go for a church wedding or any nonsense about Christianity. It was so sensitive of him to suggest City Hall. He could have tried to coax me into converting.”

  “He’s a wonderful man,” Susan said, fighting to stay coherent. She should kick Rona again, but she didn’t have the energy.

  “I’m marrying him tomorrow.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “We’ll be happy at last.”

  “Good. Now get some sleep.”

  The dawn finally came. Rona hadn’t stopped talking all night. Susan remembered blearily agreeing to many things. Listening to others. Not hearing some things because she had dozed off. Rona quizzing her.

  “I’ll bet you torture your students, too,” she complained grumpily as Rona leapt from the bed yet again to look at her wedding dress. It was barely six a.m., but already quite light.

  “Did I tell you that the ring had to be sized? It’ll be ready this morning. It’s gorgeous. I never cared much about engagement rings. This one is beautiful. Absolutely brilliant and marvelous. Look what Edward gave me for the something old.”

  Susan obligingly opened one eye, not that it would focus. Rona held a gold locket on a chain.

  “He had this made for me twenty-five years ago, but he never dared give it to me.” She opened it up, and gazed lovingly at the inscription. “It has pictures of both of us at that age. It says, ‘Faithful unto Death.’ Isn’t that lovely?”

  She grunted. Luckily, Rona didn’t require many answers, because Susan wasn’t in any shape to give them.

  Finally, it was time to get up. Susan dragged herself from the bed groaning. “That’s my last all-nighter unless sex is included.”

  Rona laughed her full-throated laugh. “Don’t say that in front of Nancy.”

  Susan grimaced. No, she didn’t want Nancy to know what she had been up to this summer.

  “Thanks for keeping watch with me, my old, true friend,” Rona said, hugging her.

  “You did it for me. I didn’t think it would take three decades for it to be my turn. Lucky this is going to be a simple wedding. I may be able to remain upright during it.”

  “Why, Susan, do I detect a hint of morning grumpiness?” Rona practically caroled.

  “That’s my mom,” Nancy replied. “If she doesn’t get her seven hours, she makes everyone pay.”

  Rona and Susan shared a flicker of a look at Nancy’s trusting chatter, then continued with the details of this special day.

  The morning was used up quickly with feminine preparations. Nancy upchucked during breakfast and was told by both of her mothers to lie down again and rest until it was her turn to dress.

  “I’d have mimosas for us, but I don’t seem as interested in drinking as I used to be. You two teetotalers are no fun,” Rona complained. Susan remained a nondrinker and Nancy of course wasn’t drinking now she was pregnant.

  “Maybe Edward will show up sloshed,” Susan consoled Rona.

  “That could be interesting.” Rona’s eyes sparkled. “He’s an amorous drunk.”

  “Oooh. Too much information. I didn’t need to know that,” Nancy complained from the couch.

  “How do you think you came into existence?” Rona shot back. “It wasn’t a rain of golden coins from the sky.”

  “That only works with virgins,” Nancy replied without a pause.

  Rona’s classical allusion to Zeus and Danae made Susan smile. She’d insisted that Nancy take classes in Latin and Greek, so Nancy understood her birth mother’s literate references. Typical Nancy, she used her knowledge to razz Rona.

  They made quite a production of dressing, again flying up and down between the apartments.

  “Are we doing something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue?” Nancy asked.

  “Yes, but in a restrained, tasteful way,” Rona replied. “I’m borrowing Susan’s pearl necklace to wear as a bracelet. The blue is my underpants.”

  “Tasteful,” Susan said. “Very tasteful.”

  Eventually, they were all dressed and looking marvelous. Susan took many photos. She asked a neighbor going outside to walk her dog to take a group shot. Rona could not stop smiling.

  Edward pulled up in a limousine. Susan shed a tear when she saw the expression of joy and wonder on his face as Rona appeared at the top of the steps.

  Rona’s demeanor was suddenly tremulous. She showed a maidenly hesitation combined with hopefulness that brought out Edward’s most gallant and courtly side. When he offered her his arm to lead her down the steps, they might as well have been in St. Patrick’s in front of three hundred formally dressed guests, instead of on a shady sidewalk on a Greenwich Village street.

  Edward kissed Rona’s hand, which was bare. The pantyhose were on, but the gloves were off. He pulled out the engagement ring from his pocket and put it on her hand and kissed her hand again and then her mouth.

  More tears leaked out of Susan’s eyes.

  Edward handed Rona into the limo like she was a piece of fine crystal. Then he straightened and seemed to notice the rest of the world.

  His eyes lit on Nancy. She walked carefully down the steps, holding the railing, but her eyes were on him with a hopeful expression.

  Edward’s expression was tentative. “Nancy?”

  “Yes, it’s me. Oh, what shall I call you?” she cried.

  “Call me Father,” he said in his deep voice, and opened his arms wide to embrace her. Nancy flung herself into them.

  Susan was glad she had zero eye makeup on since it would all have dripped down her face by now. She’d never cried so many happy tears, not even at Nancy’s wedding.

  The ride to City Hall was joyful. Edward held Rona’s hand the entire time. Nancy’s, too. Susan sat opposite them and felt a rich satisfaction that these three people were together at last. Nancy even told Edward about the baby to come. He was over the moon.

  Nancy at one point had the delicacy to ask, “Do you mind, Mom?”

  “No.” It looked right. It felt right. They were perfect. She pulled out her new camera again and took picture after picture.

  The ceremony at City Hall was as intimate and as bureaucratic as expected. Several male friends of Edward’s had come, obviously longtime friends or employees. His son, Francis, came with his wife, Carolyn, and their two children, Sam and Molly. Louis was there, and Michael, both looking fabulous in beautifully cut dark suits. Perry and Jack, too.

  At the last minute before the ceremony began, a youngish woman arrived, looking unhappy. This probably was Celia. The woman headed for Rona. Susan rushed to run interference if she could, but Rona was handling it. Rona could always cope.

  Rona was already winning from Celia a promise of peace. “You’ve come to wish your father happy. That’s good,” she started.

  “No, I—”

  Rona interrupted whatever folly Celia was about to utter. “Ignore what you think of me, Celia,
and look at your father. Do you see how happy he is?”

  Celia did look. She reluctantly nodded.

  Rona continued, “Are you big enough to want him to be that happy for the rest of his life? Because if you are, then you and I can be friends.” The threat of what Rona would do otherwise was implicit.

  Celia subsided. Later in the ceremony, Celia looked at Rona and Nancy in confusion. Their physical relationship was obvious. They both had Chinese facial features, after all. There was a subtle hint of Edward in Nancy, too. Also the not-so-subtle fact that she was a head taller than her mother, almost Edward’s height. Susan wondered what explanation Edward had offered about Rona’s choice of attendant. If he had bothered to offer any. Edward would have to reveal the rest of his secret life someday.

  The ceremony was beautiful. The sincerity in Edward’s and Rona’s voices was obvious. Their kiss once pronounced man and wife was sweetly passionate. The officiant didn’t announce them as Mr. and Mrs. since Rona, of course, was keeping her name. None of that mattered. All that counted was the happiness on their faces.

  Somehow, the press had gotten wind of it, and reporters were waiting outside to take photos and ask questions. The marriage of the longtime senator to a prominent academician well known to television audiences was news, even though he was retired now. Edward and Rona, both media savvy, smiled and said little to the press, letting their happiness speak for them.

  The wedding party and guests were whisked off to a hotel uptown and the informal luncheon reception that had gotten a bit bigger than originally planned. Colleagues of both were there. Susan recognized a veteran newswoman and several politicians. The academics’ faces weren’t as familiar, but their semi-rumpled style of dress identified them. The luncheon was raucous, a friendly affair full of smiles, laughter, and quite a bit of champagne.

  An hour into it, Edward and Rona made an announcement, “We’re leaving now for our honeymoon in Maine.”

  This crowd was far too sophisticated to throw rice, but Celia had a surprise. She pulled out packets of birdseed for everyone to throw. “It’s much more ecologically correct than rice,” she explained, apologetically. Rona nodded her approval of the gesture. Maybe there was hope for Rona’s relationship with her new stepdaughter after all.

  ***

  Then it was over. They were gone. All the tears had been cried. Susan had introduced Nancy to Michael, but there had been little time for private conversation since he’d had to get back to his job. She took her daughter back to her apartment to change their clothes, after which Nancy was heading directly for the airport. She insisted on taking a cab alone. Her last words proved that Nancy’s acute intelligence had not been clouded by the sentimentality of the day’s events.

  “Mom, it’s time to go home. Dad didn’t sound good on the phone.”

  They looked at each other, silently acknowledging the grief to come. Nancy might not know anything for sure, but she suspected something.

  Nancy continued to press her mother. “You’re needed.”

  “Yes, I am,” she sighed. “I can handle it. Your mother is going to be a stronger woman from now on.”

  “We’ll never forget Kyle,” Nancy said, with a tremble in her lips.

  “No, never,” she agreed, letting her tears show, but also smiling.

  They embraced and kissed a final time.

  The cab pulled away, and Susan was alone again.

  Chapter 28

  Michael called her before she could collect herself and go inside. “I’m lurking at the corner café. Is it safe to come over?”

  She laughed. “I’ll be waiting.” She sat on the stoop.

  Within two minutes, Michael strolled up. He was still in his office garb, but he had loosened his tie and undone the top button of his crisp white shirt. He looked dashing. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, with his hands on his lean hips brushing his jacket back. He eyed her measuringly.

  She felt a tingle at his gaze. Much had happened on these steps. This was where they first saw each other deeply. Where they fell in love.

  Michael, the mathematician, was thinking along less sentimental lines.

  “Would you explain how your adopted daughter is related to Rona again?” he asked with a quirk of humor in his tone.

  How embarrassing. Another secret she hadn’t told him. Events had been moving so swiftly in the last couple of days.

  She admitted, “Nancy is Rona’s daughter.” He nodded, obviously awaiting the rest of the story. “By Edward Thorsen.”

  She gave him the condensed version of the twenty-five-year-old secret.

  He looked up at her with his head cocked. “For a seemingly open, naïve suburban type, you have a lot of secrets. Is this the last one?”

  She squirmed, shifting her legs restlessly. She had to tell him. She stood and moved down the steps, stopping one up, so their faces were at the same level for once. “You. You’re my secret.”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.” He frowned.

  “Could we possibly continue this discussion inside?” she asked.

  “Absolutely.” Michael pulled her into his embrace. He put his lips on hers possessively. She felt him down to her toes. The controlled softness and the strength beneath. Once again she was desperate to yield all to this man. She led them inside.

  Upstairs in her empty-again apartment, they didn’t talk after all. They went to her bed and they made love. Over and over. Later they held each other, looking at the patch of sky showing through the window as it turned from clear blue to the night glow of a city too bright for mere stars.

  How long they drifted, she wasn’t sure. Finally, she had to tell him. She had to say the words that until today she hadn’t even decided upon. She covered her nakedness with a nightgown. Michael stirred, and frowned at her action. He reached for her, but she had retreated to the edge of the bed. She couldn’t even look at him when she said it.

  “I’m going home. Tomorrow. I hope I’ll be coming back.”

  “Stay with me,” Michael said, intensely. With one large hand he turned her to face him. “We belong together.”

  “I can’t.” It was so tempting. She had a duty back home. She had to deal directly with the reality of her marriage.

  “You can do it all from here. Send divorce papers, and become a New York state resident. If your friend wants this place back, you can move in with me. We can be married.”

  He continued as if he hadn’t heard her denial.

  It hurt to look at him. His feelings were openly displayed for her to see and he was hurting. She couldn’t look away as he committed himself out loud for the first time.

  “I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.” His fervent words broke through her attempt to maintain calm.

  “I can’t,” she wailed. “Not yet. I have to go back.”

  “Don’t lie. You’re choosing to deny what we have.”

  His accusation stopped her tears. Maybe he was right. No one was forcing her to leave. “I want to be with you, but I’ve been married for many years. I can’t send Rick a cold little note and divorce papers. I have to go back and face him, be absolutely sure we can’t work it out somehow.”

  Michael cursed. “He’ll guilt you into staying with him. Even though he doesn’t make you happy anymore.”

  “Maybe. I have to be fair. I also have to be practical. If we are splitting up, I need to do many very unromantic things, like hire an attorney and pack or discard clothing and personal items, and more.”

  She couldn’t wallow in her own feelings and disregard the feelings of others. It hurt too many people, including herself. Now she was hurting Michael so she wouldn’t fail Rick. Or fail herself.

  Michael rose from the bed and drew on his pants. After he had zipped them loosely, not doing up the top button, he turned and asked, “How long are we talking about?”

  She sat huddled. “I don’t know. It could be months. Maybe somehow we can turn it around.”

  “Don�
��t go.” His denial seemed ripped from him.

  “I must, Michael, don’t you see? It’s the right thing to do.”

  “How can it be right to ignore what we’ve found?”

  She evaded answering. Now restless herself, she got up and walked toward the window. She was wearing a spaghetti strap nightgown in a silky taupe, only a couple of shades darker than her skin. One of the shoulder straps had fallen down. Michael’s eyes glowed as they fixed on her half-covered breast. He moved close and tried to embrace her again. She held him off, putting both hands on his bare chest. As her fingers touched the light furring, something inside tugged at her. She pulled back her fingers as if they had been burned. She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted.

  “I have to go back.” She looked into his eyes pleadingly. “The rest of my life can’t start until that part finishes.”

  Michael said, “I’ll accept that you feel you have to go because you’re a good, moral person. The woman I love. But I want an open place in your life.”

  He grasped her upper arms, then hauled her against him. “I don’t want to be a secret memory. What if I come see you in Ohio? What if I meet Rick?” As he spoke, his fingers were caressing her body, molding her sensitive flesh. She was melting at her core. She wanted him again. She began to sway.

  “I—I’m not sure.” She forced herself to break away from him. She found a robe and covered herself from his hungry eyes. It was hard to think when he looked at her like that. When he touched her.

  “No, don’t come visit me. I can’t see you again until it’s over.”

  “I’m not going to sit here and wait for you to come back to me. I’ll follow you if I have to,” Michael said, tracking her to the window where she had retreated. “You belong to me now, not him.”

  She could feel the heat from his body, but she dared not touch him. “I feel that way. I have to go back and be sure. If the wait takes too long, or if you find a new love, I would never blame you.”

  “Fine words, but I’d rather have you.” He growled, distracting her as his teeth nipped delicately at her neck. Then his hand was inside her robe, caressing her breast. “Stay with me,” he repeated, enveloping her in his urgency as his arms closed around her.